test drive!

[lilypadmin]

Code

arrival.

We don't have a brilliant arrival prompt as of yet, but you're welcome to take a look at the arrival page and post your character's arrival if you desire! You may count this test drive as a canonical arrival if you decide to keep the character in game. Many of the below prompts are in possible arrival locations, but do not need to be arrivals.

Shopping, or something like it.

Maybe you want a toothbrush. A swimsuit. Enough sun protection to ease the transition for a vampire who'd lived their entire life safely tucked away on a space station far, far away from anything remotely sun-like. Maybe you just want to put yourself someplace everyone else is bound to go, sooner or later. Maybe you're just someone who will always default to "let's go hang out at the mall", for that matter.

Maybe you're used to shoplifting, and won't notice anything about the mall's security levels, at least at first. Maybe you're a scrupulous goody-two-shoes, and you're going to have a problem when you realize that not only is nobody asking you to pay, but there is literally no way to pay for anything you wanted to purchase.

Maybe you're just going to have to throw a temper tantrum when you realize that the Orange Julius-like storefront is also completely unstaffed, and no more automated than any other Orange Julius you've ever seen, and so you don't have any way of getting the perfect smoothie.

(Unless, maybe, you can find someone else who's got more experience with a blender than you have.)

On the shoreline.

Look. You've been to the beach before, haven't you? You know what to expect when you get there: salty water, some sand, the general sinking dread that the overpowering chemical reek of artificial-coconut-scented sunscreen is coming to get you; the usual, right?

This is maybe not your usual beach. Possibly because it's a little more like a coral reef or atoll; possibly because it's a little more like someone got carried away with programming fractals into a really big 3D printer; possibly because it isn't all that much at all like the beach you were just at, if you were maybe at a beach just before you came here anyway. No toddler temper-tantrums in earshot, no seagull con artists waiting for you to be the slightest bit distracted so they can steal your food right out of your hands, no overpowering chemical reek of artificial coconut...

Don't worry too much, though. There is sunscreen, over at the little vending machine over that-a-way, along with coverups and hats and sunglasses (oh my) — pity you can't tell what they're going to look like before the machine has spat them out at you, though.

(The water does, at least, feel like water, and taste like salt, even if the sand is disconcertingly perfectly-just-off-white, and only a few inches deep above the hull.)

By the way—if you came here in a boat, this is going to be home, at least for your boat. These are the only berths you're going to find; you can claim a berth, and if it was empty when you did, you can—presumably—keep it. Some berths are already filled with other boats. Some of these boats were clearly meant for public use, and others seem as if they used to have people living in them, or at least had private owners. Nobody's living in them right now, though. Strange.

Enjoy the spa.

Or else, you can try to enjoy the spa, if you’re motivated or don’t require any staff.

Because there isn’t any. Much like the shoreline, like the mall, like the apartments, there is a whole lot of absolutely nothing unless you can figure out how to wake up the AI—and even if you do, the AI doesn’t have a clue about how to do a massage or a stretch or a chemical peel.

But you can still enjoy the saltwater pools. Or the salt room.

Or the really nice lounge.

Or the lotus pond grid.

You can also get some good skin care supplies, or put up a note on the digital bulletin board stating what you’re looking to get done. There might be another new arrival who can give you the stretch or facial you’re looking for. If you’re someone with those skills? Better stick around. Someone might be in need.

Wildcard.

If none of these inspire you—or if all of them do and you just want to add another thing to respond to, it's up to you whether you want to put one response or several in a top level comment, we're good with anything you like—you've got a whole chunk of an empty solarpunk island to do something with. The further you stray from that shoreline the harder you will be to locate by others, but we encourage you to have fun!

Anything that the setting page inspires is probably fair game! Feel free to ask before posting if you've got any questions that reading through the mod journal doesn't yet clarify; consider this a sort of beta run. ♥

Comments

Questions, comments, etc.

[lilypadmin( as admin)]

Reply here! Our FAQ is ever-growing and things asked here may be added to it.

Gideon Nav | The Locked Tomb

[necrosavior]

On the shoreline.

Coughing up water, Gideon flails until her arm catches on something. She grabs at the edge with her second arm and pulls herself farther up. The water stops, and she rests her head against the rough grainy surface. Breathing becomes regular, and Gideon pulls up enough to stare at her arms and hands. Yes, that's right, her arms and hands. In one move she pulls herself the rest of the way up, dripping wet, onto the shore.

In the half-second searing glance Gideon gets before shutting her eyes, it's completely foreign and unfamiliar. Even Harrow's dead girlfriend isn't here ordering anyone to do anything. Her minute understanding of the River says she could be anywhere. Well hello Anywhere, it's time to meet Gideon Nav. She gets up and brushes some of the sand off. That mostly gets more grit on the palms of her hands. Whatever. The water is behind her, and the land is in front of her. Somewhere, in the distance, there are buildings and civilization. Gideon pulls her hood over her head and drooping over half her face. Even holding the fabric down below her eyes isn't a great compromise. So she stumbles slowly forward with her hands out in front of her. One step and another. That's all there is to it.

Shuos Jedao | Machineries of Empire

[deuceofgears]

At the mall

I am overdressed, is the second thing Jedao thinks when he emerges from there - in the middle of a blistering firefight - to here. Jedao's been to shopping areas before, although none configured quite like this. He's guessing that his no-longer-legal Kel uniform, worn these days to intimidate the impressionable, is...not what people here wear, based on the outfits he sees in the windows of the shops.

The first thing, which happens almost without conscious thought, is the assessment he does every time he enters a new location: sight lines, angles of fire, ways to set and avoid ambushes. He has his sidearm and a knife, neither of which are going to help him if he's vastly outnumbered in a space this open. And as empty as this place seems, the people he knows and depends on appear to be...missing. Not a good sign.

Murderbot 2.0 | The Murderbot Diaries

[softwareghost]

Shopping, or something like it.

Murderbot 2.0 issn't sure exactly what it had expected to find. At a minimum: something connected to a comm network and TargetContact. It isn't on a network. It's loaded directly into some piece of hardware. Could TargetContact sense it and divert it into an isolated system? That sounds bad. Murderbot 2.0 starts playing an episode of The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon. It's not ignoring its problems, but Murderbot 1.0 has watched this episode so many times, 2.0 figures it's helpful. It's calming.

Time for business. Murderbot 2.0 extends throughout the hardware system and powers it up. It appears to be some kind of drone at factory settings. The Targets are reusing all tech at their command, so it's suspicious. The drone is also stuck inside a small container with no visibility. Luckily, the drone has some capacity to deal with that. It extends an arm to explore the limits of the container. It's rigid but relatively soft. Not metal. Not glass. It opens easily. Murderbot 2.0 eases the thrusters up and exits the container. It scans constantly and discovers it came from one of many identical boxes. To be safe, it opens another box, copies its killware and small media sampling onto a second drone and leaves it behind. If it's destroyed, Murderbot 2.1 will hopefully recognize something went wrong and perform better.

Because 1.0 always likes to have a map of anywhere it goes (preferably) and there is no network 2.0 can download a map from, it scans in sweeps, slowly building a map from the sensor data the drone records. Murderbot 2.0 is sucking up what programming is useful and generally writing over anything that wouldn't want it to exist. Shopping districts, as it's in, only exist for people to use them, so it keeps an eye out for people, grey-skinned with implants on the back of their neck or otherwise.

Jo Harvelle | Supernatural

[tobeclosetohim]

A R R I V A L

Jo'd been headed out of the inn after a long night tabulating the new crops, ready to head back to the Coulee and the boys, when suddenly out of nowhere there was blinding daylight instead of the expected night-dark. One hand went up, shielding her eyes as the door slammed behind her. She winced against the light as everything adjusted more into focus.

A gleaming oasis of sunshine, water, and green. Nothing like they'd seen before. Jo looked over her shoulder and froze. Eyes going wide, as the building and door behind her was suddenly a glass wall of windows and door. She reached out and opened it, but it was just a door. A normal door. A normal glass door. She looked back out.

"You've got to be fucking kidding me."

Have one girl, Lilypad. Waif-thin, in all black; hiking boots, jeans, shirt, leather jacket, even the hairband at the end of the very intricate, Norse braid capturing that golden hair that goes to nearly her waist. She looks really happy to suddenly be here.

A F T E R

Jo can be found almost everywhere.

She started in the mall where one set of stores passed made it clear there were no guards, no workers, no one at all anywhere. It's just like Shatter, except everything is annoyingly and eerily bright, clean, untouched. Clothes. Supplies. Stock. (She's going to douse everything she took in holy water, just you wait and see.)

It all goes in that (incredibly beat-up) backpack, with the black (equally beaten up and archaic) pirate hat hanging off its top handle, hanging over one shoulder. Since then, she's been walking around with a(n also weathered) leather journal in one hand and a pencil in the other. .... it looks like she might be taking notes? Or drawing a map?

Nina Zenik | Grishaverse POTENTIAL SPOILERS KOS IN FUTURE COMMENTS

[miraclemaker]

Enjoy the spa.

The salt room is comfortable, and Nina loves comfort. A warm damp washcloth lays over her eyes, and a bag of toffees lives in the pocket of her white robe. This place is far from figured out, but Nina believes in being comfortable while doing so. After all, who knows what might happen in this spa? Should anything get the wrong idea, she does have bone shards in her other pocket (there's two things not to mix up, toffees and bones). Both are soothing.

When sounds interrupt her quiet lounging, Nina still waits. There's a labyrinthine nature to the spa which buys her some time. She picks up a long sharp shard of bone and rests it under one hand, on the arm of the chair. Her other hand rustles open another toffee open and plops it in her mouth. The sounds get closer. "What are you looking for?" Nina asks, in her wise grisha voice.

Krissy Chambers | Supernatural | CRAU

[heredis]

I. Shoreline Arrival
She's at The RoadHouse. She's always at the RoadHouse. Who else is there to man the place with Jo gone? For a year and change, and yes, she knows the exact change, but she doesn't like to think about it down to the weeks and days. A year is bad enough.

So much has happened since then. Both good, like the way Krissy has flourished under the sudden need for someone to step up, knowing it had to be her when she found that letter, they had to do what Jo wanted, no matter how terrified it made her to think she had to try to fill her shoes. The RoadHouse deserved to keep going, to keep being the solace that it was to the rough and tumble crowd, the hunters, the fighters, the warriors, the not-as-monstrous monsters they made concessions about until they couldn't and they had to be handled the way only a hunter could do.

And there was bad, too. They suffered losses to the island's whims, and to the terrors in deep forests and lonely mountains. Most of the time they came back. Sometimes they didn't. Krissy felt it deep into the center of her every time the RoadHouse lost another one of its crew. It was like losing family.

And isn't that odd. Thinking of these people as family, this bar, but not these islands, as a home.

She's heading into the back to grab another bottle of whatever it is someone just ordered and she noticed they were out of, and the other side of the door meets her with water rushing over her boots. She frowns and stares into the doorway, out to the water, and the beach shore not far off. Far enough she'd have to swim to reach it. And it doesn't look like the islands she's become accustomed to.

She steps backwards into the bar.
Shuts the door.
Opens it again.
The same scene greets her.

"Shit." she mutters under her breath. She ignores it for awhile, goes back to work, pretends nothing strange is on the other side of the door to the back of the bar.

She gets a backpack as ready as she can get it and stores it behind the bar, out of the way and nothing anyone else might notice. Krissy can't help thinking maybe it's what happened to Jo. Or maybe, by some fucking miracle, she'll be on the other side, too. So when everything is shut down for the night, she leaves a letter of her own, to Thorfinn, on the bartop.

And then she goes through the door.
Swims to the shore.
And for the first time one year, three weeks, and six days, she hopes.

II. Wandering
Once she gets in dry clothes, Krissy takes to wandering the Lilypad. It's... interesting. Little creepy. Little bit like Medietas, little totally not at all like it in the least. She isn't sure what to even peg the vibe here as, other than very green.

She trails through city streets, making a mental map of everything she can remember for the moment. She explores various businesses and eventually, slips inside of the apartment buildings. Come across her just about anywhere in her wandering, but sneak up on her and she might pull a knife on you.

Tenebris Rache | Star Kingdom

[themainevent]

On the shoreline.

A secure channel establishes that anyone on a particular cargo ship (nor the ship itself) will fire on an unmarked shuttle. He's expected. The space outside the Fedallah looks wrong, Rache notes, a moment before he's out of the shuttle bay. Space falls away to planetary gravity. In the privacy of his own shuttle, underneath combat armor, a hood, and a mask, Rache swears repeatedly as he brings more of the shuttle's power to bear. The thrusters were enough for the emptiness of space, less the rapidly approaching waterline of Xolas moon. His heart rate skyrockets, as his organs also try to move higher up in his body through the g forces on the falling shuttle. By the time he evens the shuttle out, Rache is grinning, exhilarated by the experience.

Only then does he have time to think. He scans the area, hoping no one takes too close a look at the shuttle appearing from nowhere. Truly, nowhere. The Fedallah is off his screen and doesn't answer his calls. The Kingdom warships are gone too along with the more than a hundred smaller ships. Not just off the moon (the gate pieces have all been claimed, for better or worse). Not on scan. Nor are the closest habitats and space stations. There's only one contact on his screen, and it's on the moon itself.

Moon, planet, whatever celestial body this place is because it is not Xolas moon. That's odd. Even Moonrazor and the Astroshamans couldn't accomplish something like this. Their understanding of the gate isn't that good, and they don't have the gate, not enough to operate anything. Rache would believe being targeted for attacking the base. This isn't it. His course lays in for the lone contact. The shuttle isn't meant for long distance space flight, and the stars don't match his charts. For lack of a better option, he approaches the harbor, where some boats are docked. Nothing on comms, no one asking for his ident or purpose or anything.

The shuttle lands on a small pier to the side, where no boats are docked. None should because the shuttle is on the pier itself, not the sea. Rache loads up the weaponry he has in the shuttle and exits to the city below. In his black combat armor, face hidden under a hood and mask under the face place, he strolls down the docks. There isn't enough cover to keep himself from view so better not to scurry around, to let someone tell he's anywhere he didn't intend to go.

bucky barnes | mcu

[armeyets]

arrival.
So the thing is, this isn't even his boat.

The Paul & Darlene is bumping up along the shoreline, and Bucky wakes suddenly from the unexpected movement: the sway of the boat, the grind of it hitting a sandbank rather than the Delacroix pier it was supposed to be tied up at. He and Sam had been working on it late, still trying to get the rickety old thing back to full life — it's been improved, but the engine still has a tendency to sputter and groan and keel over sometimes.

And he almost falls out of his cot in surprise, his heart pounding. His friend's cot on the other side of the cabin is empty, which wouldn't be too weird, except—

He steps out onto the deck, and stares out at the Lilypad.

"What the fuck," Bucky says.

So, welcome to the sight of one (1) extremely perplexed supersoldier standing on the deck of a small old fishing boat; he's sleep-rumpled and wearing jeans and a black t-shirt, which exposes his black-and-gold metal arm. One hand cranes by his face, shielding his eyes from the sun as he squints at the pearl-white city.

Looks like you're not in Louisiana anymore, Toto.


shopping.
This might be a temperate environment, but one of the first things Bucky does is try to find a jacket at the mall. (Old habits die hard, and he's accustomed to needing to cover up that arm, hiding it from overly-curious eyes.)

There's something creepy about empty malls — he's actually seen Dawn of the Dead now, thanks, Lang had recommended that one — and so he's wandering the building with his hackles on edge. There's a wariness to the way the man paces through these empty halls, head swiveling and searching for threats. He can hear better than most, his senses keen for anyone sneaking up on him. He misses having a gun, but hell, the man himself is practically a living weapon.

After he finds a suitable leather jacket, he winds up standing helplessly by the empty cashier's counter, politeness warring with practicality. He has no money, and no one to pay.

"D'you think they take IOUs?"


on the shoreline.
With his arrival having come by sea, he's not entirely sure where his door is, or how to get back. Bucky had gone swimming, diving down deep over and over, searching for the exit, but he can't find it— if it was ever there in the first place.

He returns grudgingly to land, clothes dripping wet as he drags himself up the bank and finally just flops into one of the beach chairs, within eyeshot of the boat. He got a hold of a pair of sunglasses at some point from one of the vending machines, and he's put them on as he tips his head backwards, staring up at the unfamiliar sky.

"Kidnapped by aliens," he concludes.


wildcard.
[ feel free to toss him anything! he'll be wandering around the city, grousing, and will also be overprotective of the fishing boat if anyone approaches it without him. canon point is post-fatws; i can avoid spoilers if need be. will match prose or brackets. ]